Key Term Eight – Prepossessing

Prepossessing – Attractive or appealing in appearance, to make a positive impression (on someone) beforehand.

For the first few weeks of school, people would compliment my dresses and then ask me why I wore them (now they compliment me on them, but without the questions). I would practice my excuses because it came up enough, before I eventually decided to tell people it was just what I liked to wear, which was completely true. But in June and July, before my move to New York City, I would practice wearing dresses. My parents would question my justifications for wearing them, but they never argued with me – New York City, the greatest city in the world, was the most prepossessing thing I could imagine. In order to fit in with the city that glittered, I needed to find a way to glitter, too. So I practiced and got better at the act of wearing dresses, so that someday, someone could consider me worthy of the city, the city that had done so well to formulate my opinion. It was as if I was not only meeting a famous celebrity – rather, it was that I was going to be friends with the celebrity. They’re quieter than I would have pictured them to be, but they’re still so damn cool.

Prepossessing isn’t always a term that means attractive and impressive. It can mean prejudice and bias, but I feel as though this still applies to my attraction to New York City. There was once a time where I was speaking with a friend, and she was explaining her college choice to me. “And everyone talks about New York like it’s so great, it’s not that great,” I heard her, in the midst of her you-don’t-even-need-to-be-here harangue. “It’s just a city.” Until that moment, I had blindly agreed with her as a good friend does, but at this, I felt my insides seize up. How dare she even suggest that the city was not the greatest place in the world? My travel plans were far from set in stone, but her offhanded criticism hit me like a ton of bricks; I had been so prepossessed by the city I now call home. Of course I’m biased, but oh, what a thing to be biased about.